


I Dare You

by timetogoslumming



Series: Camp Mountain Ridge [3]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: M/M, a bunch of newsies are in this but i didnt feel like tagging them, background javid, lifeguarding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 04:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11051742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetogoslumming/pseuds/timetogoslumming
Summary: Inspired by an anonymous request from tumblr: "pst i dare you to write something on ao3 in your other summer camp series and have race idk get hurt in the pool or nearly drown and everyone finally sees protective spot and yeah please i dare you"like racetrack higgins, i can't turn down a dare.





	I Dare You

**Author's Note:**

> warning for hospital scenes and not super graphic depictions of blood.

One Friday after campers were gone, Jack announced that they would be having a staff cookout and pool party that night. As the brand new camp director, he was still trying to figure out how much food had to be ordered for the camp, and they had a ton of leftover hot dogs and hamburgers that needed to be used up.

Everyone gathered at the pool while Jack started the charcoal on the grill there. Davey was sitting on the picnic table next to him, keeping flies away from the food and occasionally passing Jack sips of his drink or the bag of chips they were sharing. 

Since it was an official camp function, they were required to have lifeguards. Spot and JoJo took the first shift, with JoJo patrolling the edge of the pool and Spot watching from the elevated lifeguard chair. A few guys had bought pool floats shaped like poop emojis or doughnuts, and they were busy blowing them up by the side of the pool. 

Spot leaned back in his chair, still paying attention as any good lifeguard would, but not as carefully as he would have if it were a bunch of kids in the pool. He knew for a fact that all of these guys were good swimmers, and as long as there were no accidents, everything would be fine. It was hot, though, and sweat was already starting to bead on the back of his neck. Dutchy and Boots would take over in half an hour, and it couldn’t come soon enough.

As Spot scanned the pool, Race tapped his leg. Spot looked down from his perch and saw Race holding up a vanilla Coke- Spot’s favorite. He took it gratefully. “Thanks.”

“Want to come watch a movie later?” Race asked. 

“Yeah, definitely.” Spot lowered his voice and then leaned down so his face was almost level with Race’s. “And maybe we can finish up what we were doing Wednesday night,” he added suggestively. Race grinned and popped up on his toes, just long enough to try to kiss Spot. Spot was a bit too high up, and Race just got his chin. “Stop distracting me.”

“Fine,” Race said cockily. He winked at Spot before strolling over to the spot where Albert and Elmer were standing on the edge of the pool. 

Jack finally decided that the charcoal was ready, and he started putting food on the grill. “Hey, Spot,” he yelled. “How many veggie burgers do you want?”

“Two is good,” Spot called back as he turned to face Jack and the grill.

 

At the same time as Spot turned away, Race accepted a challenge from Albert- that he couldn’t backflip onto the doughnut float in the pool. Race turned around and jumped, throwing his feet in the air above his head. Spot turned back when JoJo whistled sharply, ready to yell at Race when he came back up. 

But he didn’t come back up. Spot felt his stomach plummet as he and JoJo both waited, until he noticed a faint pink tinge to the water around Race’s head. JoJo saw it too and blew the whistle three times sharply as Spot stood and jumped from the lifeguard chair into the pool. JoJo was in right after him, following behind as Spot swam to Race, where he was submerged in the deep end. Dutchy and Boots were ushering counselors out of the pool, instructing them to get out as carefully as possible, without jostling the water much. 

Once Spot was a couple of feet away from Race, he dove under water, grabbing Race around the middle of his chest and supporting his head with his free arm. He kicked off from the bottom and they shot back up to the surface, where JoJo was waiting with his and Spot’s guard tubes. JoJo carefully maneuvered the tubes under Race’s legs and back to keep him afloat while Spot kept his head in place. He was still bleeding, and if there was any kind of spinal injury, they couldn’t risk jostling it. 

The rest of the staff was out of the pool by this point, waiting anxiously by the edge, where Dutchy and Boots were waiting with a backboard. The lifeguards in the water carefully swam Race to the edge of the pool, where the backboard was slipped into the water next to them. While JoJo maneuvered the board under Race, Spot studied his face for any sign of movement or life, but there were none. JoJo worked on strapping Race down and soon, Dutchy and Boots were dragging the board, with Race lifelessly still atop it, out of the water.

Spot hoisted himself out of the pool while the other guards laid Race down on the ground. Dutchy felt for a pulse and breath and announced that he was still alive, and, after a huge cough, still breathing, but he didn’t wake up. 

“The ambulance is on the way,” Davey yelled from the phone on the wall. Spot knelt beside Race’s head, where he deftly felt around for the injury. It was on the back of his head, and before he could even ask, Jack was taking off his shirt and handing it to Spot, who pressed it against the wound to try to cover the bleeding. 

There wasn’t much to do until an ambulance arrived. The lifeguards monitored Race’s vital signs, which stayed steady. “Here, let me take over,” JoJo said, motioning to the shirt pressed against Race’s head.

“No!” Spot snapped, and JoJo backed off. The rest of the staff stayed huddled around, speaking in hushed, anxious tones, until finally, the sounds of sirens could be heard off in the distance, drawing nearer with every second. 

Elmer opened the gates for the EMTs when they made it up the hill, and they rushed in with a stretcher. “What happened?” one of them asked.

“He did a backflip into the pool and hit his head,” Boots told the EMT. “We’ve had his head stabilized. He’s breathing and his pulse is still strong, but he’s bleeding pretty bad and still knocked out.”

Spot reluctantly backed off as the EMTs stepped in, checking his vitals and concluding, like they had, that Race was relatively okay, as far as they could tell. Race was loaded onto the ambulance, and Spot hovered by the door. “I’m riding with you,” he announced.

“You’re the lifeguard that saved him?” an EMT asked.

Spot nodded. “One of them. But I’m also his boyfriend, and I know his recent medical history. I’m coming.”

“Okay, hop in,” the EMT said before gesturing for Spot to get into the ambulance. 

Spot sat next to Race, hand gripping his shoulder, while they rode. He shivered slightly, wishing that he had thought to borrow a dry shirt from someone. His was completely soaked after jumping in the pool. He’d just have to call Jack and ask him to bring some clothes for both of them. 

About halfway to the hospital, Race’s eyes fluttered open. He winced. “What happened?” he asked groggily. 

“You’re a dumbass, is what happened,” Spot snapped.

“You hit your head in the pool,” an EMT explained gently after shooting Spot a warning glare. She kept asking Race questions, most of which he was able to answer. Spot filled in the gaps wherever Race didn’t know. Now that he knew for sure that Race wasn’t on the brink of death, Spot checked his phone, which had been inundated with texts. “We’re in a car on the way there,” Jack had said. 

“Grab us some clothes,” Spot replied. “I’m soaked.”

Race struggled slightly against the straps holding him down. “Can you unstrap me?” he asked. 

“No,” the EMT replied. “We have to make sure that you don’t have any spinal injuries and until then, we can’t have you moving around.” Race shot Spot a look, and Spot responded by reaching down and taking his hand. 

They made it to the hospital in good time, and Spot was allowed to follow them in, until a nurse directed him to a waiting room. “We’ll let you know as soon as he can have visitors,” she said. 

“Okay,” Spot grumbled. “Oh, uh… he got in a wreck a few weeks ago and got a concussion. I don’t know if you guys need to know that, but…”

“Thank you,” the nurse said. “I’ll make sure that’s noted.”

Spot sat in the waiting room by himself, shivering from the AC that was blasting onto his wet clothes and watched the TV with no interest. There was some kind of show on about women who murdered their husbands. It seemed pretty inappropriate for the waiting room of a hospital. 

Jack, Crutchie, JoJo, Boots, and Dutchy showed up then, and JoJo tossed Spot a bag of clothes. “We had to stop at CVS and they didn’t have much, but at least you’ll be dry.”

“Any word?” Dutchy asked as Spot pulled the clothes from the bag. 

“No,” he said taking a closer look at the clothes inside. The tshirt was white with an American flag and the words  _ Home of the free _ on it, and a pair of baggy basketball shorts were right underneath. “Isn’t it  _ land  _ of the free and home of the  _ brave _ ?” 

“Huh,” JoJo said with a laugh. “What do you know. Anyway, go change.” Spot took the clothes, leaving the second set for Race when he was ready to be discharged. He changed in the bathroom after ripping off the tags and tossing them in a trashcan. The shirt was a size 3XL and the pants were just as huge. Spot was able to tie the drawstring tightly enough that the pants didn’t fall down, but the shirt still practically reached his knees.

“Do you think this is funny?” he grumbled as he came back to the waiting room, holding his wet clothes.

Crutchie clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. “I swear,” Jack said gleefully. “We grabbed the first things we could find. Didn’t even look at sizes.”

As they waited, more and more cars full of counselors showed up, until the entire staff of Camp Mountain Ridge was anxiously waiting there. When Albert arrived, he went straight to Spot, looking devastated. “I’m  _ so _ sorry,” he said remorsefully. “It’s my fault. We were messing around and I dared him to do the flip.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Spot snapped. “You could have gotten him killed!”

“I know!” Albert said. “I know. I’m sorry. I messed up.”

“You’re just lucky he’s alive,” Spot growled. 

Jack put a hand on his shoulder. “Chill.”

 

A nurse finally came in. “Antonio can have visitors now,” she said, taking in the huge crowd of guys gathered there. “Maybe just a couple at a time.”

“I’ll go,” Spot said, standing. He followed the nurse to Race’s room, where he was laid up in bed with a bandage on his head. Spot couldn’t help but remember the last time he found Race in this same hospital, the day they finally got together for real.

“Guess who has another concussion,” Race said as brightly as he could under the drugs he had been given.

“Dammit, Race,” Spot groaned. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“No,” Race protested. “I’m good at backflips. My foot just slipped…” 

“I don’t care! You could have died. Do you have any idea what it would do to me if you died on my watch?”

Race smiled. “But you’d be okay with me dying if you weren’t the one guarding?”

“Well, yeah,” Spot retorted. “At least then it wouldn’t damage my lifeguard cred.”

“Sorry,” Race said softly. “Thanks for saving me.” He cracked a grin. “Did you have to give me mouth-to-mouth?”

“Shut up,” Spot said. “No.”

Race tutted disapprovingly. “That’s not very thorough. You better do it now.” Spot grinned and leaned over to kiss Race. “By the way,” Race said after they pulled apart. “What are you wearing?”

Spot glanced down at his gigantic outfit. “The guys picked it up on their way here because  _ someone _ made me jump in the pool in all of my clothes. The whole staff’s out there waiting for you, by the way. And don’t laugh too much. They got you the same outfit once you get out of this-” he lifted the blankets covering Race and looked down at him. “Hospital gown you’ve got here.”

“Excellent.”

Spot took a seat on the edge of Race’s bed. “I swear to god, Race. If I have to come get you from the hospital again, I’ll kill you myself.”

“Believe me, I’m right there with you,” Race replied. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Spot said gruffly. “No homo.”


End file.
